On why I won’t become a fan of those works about the ‘Mafia’
A fellow artist once told me her plan with her working partner to make a ‘BL story about the head of an Italian mafia family and an Irish mafioso’.
I told her, “I don’t know anything about the Irish mafia, but I suggest you leave out the Italian mafioso.” I lent her my first copy of John Dickie’s Cosa Nostra (the most authoritative book about the Mafia in English). She hasn’t returned it, and I don’t know whether the book has changed her mind. (As for me, I’ve got myself the updated version of the book, so I’m not complaining about its absence.)
I know that some people find it a bit odd of me why I am so insisting about not glorifying the Mafia in any way. So here I am telling you why.
Picture from BBC News.
[Please note that the word ‘Mafia’ used here is referring only to Italian Mafia, mostly to Cosa Nostra, but also to similar groups like Sacra Corona Unita, Comorra, and ‘Ndrangheta. I’m not talking about the other so-called ‘mafias’ like Triad, Yakuza, the Russian mafia, etc.]
Well, I know how the Mafia may appear to some (many?) people who don’t bother trying to understand about them more than what our popular media tell us about them. To people who don’t have to live under the constant threats of the Mafia, they may look like a bunch of sharply-dressed people, clad in dark colours, looking handsome in their Italian figures and complexion, with a set of code of honour that seems to set them apart from the ordinary criminals. They are indeed enigmatic, and this makes them appear somewhat ‘cool’.
Friends have been telling me to read some works portraying the ‘Mafia’. So far I’ve refused. I’ve no doubt that the works they offer me must have some good quality or another - storywise, artwise or maybe other. But I just can’t take the depiction of Mafia as something different, something better and ‘cooler’ than the ruthless band of people they are.
I am not implying either that the authors of these works are supporting the Mafia in whatsoever way. It’s just like, I don’t think authors of Trinity Blood and Hellsing thought much when they used religious symbols or reference in their works. I guess the symbols and reference arguably just serve as the elements of cool in the story. Well, at least in Trinity Blood and Hellsing, the priests are fighting evil... But, there - people don’t know many things about the Mafia, yet they make stories like... gay head of a Mafia family and such, which only goes to show that they’re missing some of the facts.
Yes, I seem to ‘like’ the Mafia. But the more correct word is I am ‘interested’ in them.
My first ‘contact’ with the Mafia is from a comic called Johnny Goodbye that I read when I was very, very young. Johnny was a detective in 1920s Chicago, and had to fight Al Capone. Even in this comedic work, the Mafia were portrayed as a group of bad people that would do anything to get their hands on what they wanted.
After that, there’s another comic - I forgot what it is called, but there’s a group of detectives, every male member of which wore black suits and a bowler hat - this time focusing on the Sicilian Mafia, showing what a hypocritical group they are. Going to the Church, making oath with the name of Jesus and Mary, but murdering people next.
Picture from BBC News
Yes, that’s what they do: they kill people; they torture people; they shoot them, cut them up and feed the pieces to pigs, they blow them to bits (like what happened to Peppino Impastato), they dispose of their bodies in acid... all the things you don’t want to happen in your normal neighbourhood.
Yes, they have what they call ‘rules of honour’ and their swear of silence, the ómerta. I am worried about how these phrases appear in fan community of the ‘Mafia’-portraying works, as if they are some fun or laughing matter. Mafia rules of honour and ómerta are their justification to do the horrendous actions they do. They don’t look as beautiful as they are.
You may argue, “A mafioso may not steal other mafioso’s wife. Isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that show that the mafiosi have some level of real honour in them?” Such rules are there to test whether the mafiosi can be trusted or not. In Dickie’s words, ‘If a mafioso gambles, womanizes, and parades his wealth, he is likely to be considered unreliable and therefore expendable’. We can dissect the rules one by one, but the whole purpose of them is this: the unity, and thus the functioning, of the Family.
And who says they leave out women? Or children?
And their crime is not something of the past. The Mafia are still terrorizing parts of Italy, if not Italy as a whole. So, just like I won’t do anything that might glorify the members of al-Qaeda and such groups, I won’t do any similar thing with the Mafia.
I don’t force you to adopt my principles; I’m just offering you what I know, my point of view, my decision of not getting involved in anything that celebrates the Mafia, something to consider. To me the Mafia are not funny. They are not romantic. They are not cool.
But if you want to tell me anything from the other side of the fence, or anything that I don’t know about the Mafia that might be contrary with what I know, I am all ears.
[ETA] Somebody's comment about the Mafia in Facebook:
mafia is the cancer of Italy, cancer of many countries. strong with the weaks, weak with the strong... killer of innocent peoples and children, womens, old men.
if you think that this is a good example of humanity, i think you need to shoot yourself.. and start to know who SAVIANO is...[/ETA]
I told her, “I don’t know anything about the Irish mafia, but I suggest you leave out the Italian mafioso.” I lent her my first copy of John Dickie’s Cosa Nostra (the most authoritative book about the Mafia in English). She hasn’t returned it, and I don’t know whether the book has changed her mind. (As for me, I’ve got myself the updated version of the book, so I’m not complaining about its absence.)
I know that some people find it a bit odd of me why I am so insisting about not glorifying the Mafia in any way. So here I am telling you why.
Picture from BBC News.
[Please note that the word ‘Mafia’ used here is referring only to Italian Mafia, mostly to Cosa Nostra, but also to similar groups like Sacra Corona Unita, Comorra, and ‘Ndrangheta. I’m not talking about the other so-called ‘mafias’ like Triad, Yakuza, the Russian mafia, etc.]
Well, I know how the Mafia may appear to some (many?) people who don’t bother trying to understand about them more than what our popular media tell us about them. To people who don’t have to live under the constant threats of the Mafia, they may look like a bunch of sharply-dressed people, clad in dark colours, looking handsome in their Italian figures and complexion, with a set of code of honour that seems to set them apart from the ordinary criminals. They are indeed enigmatic, and this makes them appear somewhat ‘cool’.
Friends have been telling me to read some works portraying the ‘Mafia’. So far I’ve refused. I’ve no doubt that the works they offer me must have some good quality or another - storywise, artwise or maybe other. But I just can’t take the depiction of Mafia as something different, something better and ‘cooler’ than the ruthless band of people they are.
I am not implying either that the authors of these works are supporting the Mafia in whatsoever way. It’s just like, I don’t think authors of Trinity Blood and Hellsing thought much when they used religious symbols or reference in their works. I guess the symbols and reference arguably just serve as the elements of cool in the story. Well, at least in Trinity Blood and Hellsing, the priests are fighting evil... But, there - people don’t know many things about the Mafia, yet they make stories like... gay head of a Mafia family and such, which only goes to show that they’re missing some of the facts.
Yes, I seem to ‘like’ the Mafia. But the more correct word is I am ‘interested’ in them.
My first ‘contact’ with the Mafia is from a comic called Johnny Goodbye that I read when I was very, very young. Johnny was a detective in 1920s Chicago, and had to fight Al Capone. Even in this comedic work, the Mafia were portrayed as a group of bad people that would do anything to get their hands on what they wanted.
After that, there’s another comic - I forgot what it is called, but there’s a group of detectives, every male member of which wore black suits and a bowler hat - this time focusing on the Sicilian Mafia, showing what a hypocritical group they are. Going to the Church, making oath with the name of Jesus and Mary, but murdering people next.
Picture from BBC News
Yes, that’s what they do: they kill people; they torture people; they shoot them, cut them up and feed the pieces to pigs, they blow them to bits (like what happened to Peppino Impastato), they dispose of their bodies in acid... all the things you don’t want to happen in your normal neighbourhood.
Yes, they have what they call ‘rules of honour’ and their swear of silence, the ómerta. I am worried about how these phrases appear in fan community of the ‘Mafia’-portraying works, as if they are some fun or laughing matter. Mafia rules of honour and ómerta are their justification to do the horrendous actions they do. They don’t look as beautiful as they are.
You may argue, “A mafioso may not steal other mafioso’s wife. Isn’t that a good thing? Doesn’t that show that the mafiosi have some level of real honour in them?” Such rules are there to test whether the mafiosi can be trusted or not. In Dickie’s words, ‘If a mafioso gambles, womanizes, and parades his wealth, he is likely to be considered unreliable and therefore expendable’. We can dissect the rules one by one, but the whole purpose of them is this: the unity, and thus the functioning, of the Family.
And who says they leave out women? Or children?
And their crime is not something of the past. The Mafia are still terrorizing parts of Italy, if not Italy as a whole. So, just like I won’t do anything that might glorify the members of al-Qaeda and such groups, I won’t do any similar thing with the Mafia.
I don’t force you to adopt my principles; I’m just offering you what I know, my point of view, my decision of not getting involved in anything that celebrates the Mafia, something to consider. To me the Mafia are not funny. They are not romantic. They are not cool.
But if you want to tell me anything from the other side of the fence, or anything that I don’t know about the Mafia that might be contrary with what I know, I am all ears.
[ETA] Somebody's comment about the Mafia in Facebook:
mafia is the cancer of Italy, cancer of many countries. strong with the weaks, weak with the strong... killer of innocent peoples and children, womens, old men.
if you think that this is a good example of humanity, i think you need to shoot yourself.. and start to know who SAVIANO is...[/ETA]